AAFF DVD Collections

The Ann Arbor Film Festival DVD collections: new and contemporary, short film and video, independent, experimental, avant garde and artist-made. Each sale of the AAFF DVD collections provides income for participating filmmakers, furthering the Ann Arbor Film Festival's mission to help support talented film and video artists. All films were licensed for these collections and all filmmakers maintain full copyright of their work. Educational licensing is available for each DVD collection.

Ray's Birds - Deborah Stratman | Chicago, IL | 7 minJury Award 49th AAFF
Ray Lowden keeps seventy-two large birds of prey, five deer and some wallabies at his place in Northumberland, England. He’s had ten days off in twelve years and loves what he does. The film is a little homage to his variously coy, imperious, curious, stubborn and comic raptor menagerie. –DS

I Touched Her Legs - Eva Marie Rødbro | Denmark | 15 minThe Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award Emerging Experimental Video Artist 49th AAFF; N. American premiere at 49th AAFF
An extraordinary portrait of a group of Southern teens hanging out in cars, rooms, and neighborhood yards in humid pool-party weather. Rødbro creates a deft and skillful montage in which animals, insects children and adolescents all inhabit an environment easily and warmly shared. Through subtly glancing shots taken at oblique angles and in brief bursts, I Touched Her Legs reaches directly into the soul of this small band of friends and explains everything that is important without a single dull expository declaration on their circumstances.

28.IV.81 (Descending Figures) - Christopher Harris | Ovideo, FL | 3 minJury Award 49AAFF; World premiere at 49th AAFF
Shot in July, 2010, "28.IV.81 (Descending Figures)" is an improvised double projection film that was edited in-camera at the Holy Land Experience Theme Park in Orlando, Florida. The noon and 5:00 p.m. performances of the theme park's “Behold the Lamb–Passion Drama" are condensed to separate 100' rolls of film and simultaneously projected side by side.

The “descending figure came in to remind us that a sparked or incendiary ‘someone’… repeatedly flared only to flicker and fade and die down again.” –from Bedouin Hornbook by Nathaniel Mackey

Broad Channel - Sarah J. Christman | Brooklyn, NY | 13 min[Jury Award 49th AAFF]
Over the course of four seasons, nuances of everyday activity are examined along one narrow stretch of public shoreline on New York City's Broad Channel Island. Moments of recurrence and change cycle through an ecosystem rooted in migration. –SC

Miramare - Michaela Müller | Croatia/Switzerland | 8 min
A look at life on the Mediterranean borders of Europe, where tourists try to relax while "illegal" immigrants struggle to get a chance for a better life. –MM

Fern Silva’s In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails suggests a future already arrived, merging the destruction with the creation of life as seen in the tiny turtles crawling their way to the sea, or heard in the crackling of a Geiger counter as a masked man sprays plants with pesticides. Though only 13 minutes, the film’s span is enormous. As revelers in Salvador, Bahia, parade through the streets, a gnat-sized Mercury passes across the surface of the sun, and men slowly make their way up the giant steps of an ancient temple; the film resides in a well of deep time, civilizational history swallowed by the life of the planet. –Genevieve Yue

The Florestine Collection - Helen Hill, completed by Paul Gailiunas | S. Pasadena, CA | 31 minJury Award 49th AAFF; World premiere at 49th AAFF
Experimental animator Helen Hill found more than 100 handmade dresses in a trash pile on one Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans. She set out to make a film about the dressmaker, an African-American seamstress who had recently passed away. The dresses and much of the film footage were later flood-damaged by Hurricane Katrina while Helen was still working on the film. Helen was murdered in a home invasion in New Orleans in 2007. Her husband Paul Gailiunas has completed the film, which includes Helen's original silhouette, cut-out, and puppet animation, as well as flood-damaged and restored home movies.

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Ann Arbor Film Festival DVD Collection Volume 3
Award-winning and select short films from the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival, featuring new genre-crossing works from Spain, England, Germany, Norway and the U.S. The first 200 DVDs come in a screen-printed matteboard case, printed by VGKids, and include a set of five postcards with original artwork by filmmakers Martha Colburn, Lewis Klahr, Julie Murray, Michael Robinson and Deborah Stratman.

Black Rain - Semiconductor | Brighton, England | 3 min
Working with STEREO satellite scientists, Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) collected all the HI (Heliospheric Imager) image data to date, revealing the journey of the satellites from their initial orientation, to their current tracing of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

From the Archives of an Inventor - Stephen Wetzel | Milwaukee, WI | 20 minJury Award 48th AAFF
Invention and America seem inseparable. The country has a restless image of itself as a work in progress; and the character at its core is the inventor — equal parts entrepreneur and crackpot, path-setter and outsider. Wetzel's piece is a found-footage exploration of one such character, a Midwestern inventor whose house has been transformed into a playful model of the future with mechanized armchairs and a domestic robot.

Travelling Fields - Inger Lise Hansen | Oslo, Norway | 9 minMost Technically Innovative Film 48th AAFF
Moving between different topographies and locations in the Kola Peninsula, Northern Russia, this film explores sections of the landscape by moving the camera upside/down, one frame at the time, along a track. The work focuses on a particular phenomenon occurring through a change of perspective and animated camera movements, as a way of redefining a place and its geography.

The Presentation Theme - Jim Trainor | Chicago, IL | 14 minThe Stan Brakhage Film at Wit's End Award 48th AAFF
A Peruvian prisoner of war finds himself outmaneuvered by a hematophagous priestess. Based on a true story. –J.T.

Vineland - Laura Kraning | Altadena, CA | 10 minJury Award 48th AAFF
At the last drive-in movie theater in Los Angeles, dislocated Hollywood images filled with apocalyptic angst float within the desolate nocturnal landscape of the City of Industry. In this border zone, re-framed and mirrored projections collide with the displaced radio broadcast soundtrack, revealing overlapping realities at the intersection of nostalgia and alienation.

Sleeping Bear - Jack Cronin | Ann Arbor, MI | 11 minBest Michigan Filmmaker Award 48th AAFF
Filmed at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan over the course of three years, this work, which loosely follows the cycle of seasons, is a study of the landscape and an attempt to represent the unique character of this region.

Dahlia - Michael Langan | San Francisco, CA | 5 min
An animated, fast-motion portrait that explores the bustle and permanence of a city: San Francisco. Set to a driving score of vocal percussion, this film is a high-velocity contrast of stable forms and the dynamic patterns of life.

Studies in Transfalumination - Peter Rose | Philadelphia, PA | 5 minJury Award 47th AAFF
The visual complexities of the ordinary world – a tunnel, a clump of grass, a discarded table, a piece of rock – are examined with modified flashlights and stripped down video projectors in this otherworldly exploration of place and perception.

Quiero Ver - Adele Horne | Los Angeles, CA | 6 min
On the 13th of each month, hundreds of people gather at a site in the Mojave Desert to see visions of the Virgin Mary appear in the sun. They point Polaroid, cell phone, and video cameras at the sun, and compare interpretations of the resulting images.

Cattle Call - Mike Maryniuk & Matthew Rankin | Winnipeg, Canada | 4 min
Structured around the mesmerizing talents of 2007 Manitoba /Saskatchewan Auctioneer Champion, Tim Dowler, this film tries to create images as dazzlingly abstract, absurd and adrenalizing as the incredible language of auctioneering itself. It is the filmmakers hope that the film will induce near-bovine levels of dumbfoundedness in all those who gaze upon it.

Blue Tide, Black Water - Eve Gordon and Sam Hamilton | Wellington, New Zealand | 10 min
Amid an ocean of wax one might chance upon a garden of flowering chemicals, where the filmmakers have circumnavigated microscopic reactions, creating an epic in miniature.

Nora - Alla Kovgan & David Hinton | Somerville, MA | 35 minEileen Maitland Award 47th AAFF
Shot in Southern Africa, NORA is based on childhood memories of the dancer Nora Chipaumire who was born in Zimbabwe in 1965. Using performance and dance, she brings her history to life in a swiftly-moving poem of sound and image. The original score was composed by a Zimbabwean legend - Thomas Mapfumo.

Video Terraform Dance Party - Jeremy Bailey | Toronto, Canada | 12 minFunniest Film Award 47th AAFF
Based on his live performances, Bailey shows off his latest software program that allows the user to design a better world. Combining improv monologue, social commentary, and interactive software, Bailey provides a platform to laugh and dance in our seats while contemplating the ways we live together.

A City to Yourself - Nicole Macdonald | Detroit, MI | 24 minBest Michigan Film Award 47th AAFF
In 1950, Detroit's population reached 1,849,568 people in the city; today there are fewer than half remaining. We hear a lot of negativity about the crumbling infrastructure of a shrinking, post-industrial city like Detroit, but what about the pluses of having a city to yourself?
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Ann Arbor Film Festival DVD Collection
Volume 1 – Time Pieces "This is a very worthwhile collection of short films, a must for anyone seriously interested in animation, experimental and surrealist cinema. Highly Recommended." –DVD Talk

Ten award-winning and favorite short films from the 46th Ann Arbor Film Festival, covering all dimensions of the frame: avant garde film art, experimental animation comedy, alternative narrative, poetic and abstract explorations of nature, indie documentary. Time Pieces also includes rare bonus material with deleted scenes, director commentary, artist statements, video installations and audition outtakes. See the preview trailer!

A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process (In Less Than 60 Seconds) - Chel White | 2 min
A stream-of-conscious look at the writing process, told with animated images straight from the subconscious... or somewhere. The narrative originates from an unpublished satirical essay by poet Scott Poole about his own writing process. It was the inspiration for filmmaker Chel White to build this one-minute film upon. To learn more: www.skysociety.com/chelwhite.html

The Drift - Kelly Sears | 9 min
The disappearance of a group of astronauts and a mysterious transmission from outer space launches the counter-cultural revolution in this fable from an alternate universe. The Drift explores both the American frontier spirit and it's apathetic polar opposite. To learn more: www.kellysears.com

The Adventure - Mike Brune | 22 min
A couple's leisurely drive through the woods is interrupted by a panicked mime. The couple becomes a captive audience to, and then reluctant participants in a high stakes drama as it unfolds. The Adventure is an existential comedy that may challenge the viewer's perception of mimes forever. To learn more: fakewoodwallpaper.com

Li: The Patterns of Nature - John Campbell | 9 minKodak/Filmcraft Imaging Award for Best Cinematography 46th AAFF
Employing time-lapse, microscopy, animation and cymatic imagery, Campbell's exceptional cinematography explores the Chinese concept of Li - organic patterning, and the underlying inherent order of the physical world as revealed in its natural patterns and rhythms. To learn more: www.filmbaby.com/films/2961

Frog Jesus - Ben Peters | 2 min
He thought he could make a frog Jesus. To learn more: www.kijo.com

Number One - Leighton Pierce | 11 minHonorable Mention Award 46th AAFF
With water imagery as the foundation, Number One engages the experience of elasticity between varying states of mind. To learn more: www.leightonpierce.com

Office Suite - Robert Todd | 14 min
This officescape reflects the rhythms of Todd's mind from daybreak-to-break: light journeys within and without his office, in 3 movements: InnerClose with Shadow and Steam (Andante Up, Down, and Sidelong), Exterior Fantasy from Dawn to Break (Allegro in moving colors), and Hallway (the End of that World). Winner of the Gus Van Sant Award for Best Experimental Film at the 46th Ann Arbor Film Festival. To learn more: www.roberttoddfilms.com

Energie! - Thorsten Fleisch | 5 minThe Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for Emerging Experimental Video Artist 46th AAFF
An uncontrolled high voltage discharge exposes photographic paper, which is then arranged in time to create new visual systems of electron organization. Even though the result is abstract, it tells a universal story older than the world itself. To learn more: fleischfilm.com

Portrait #2: Trojan - Vanessa Renwick | 5 min
The Portrait Series is part of an ongoing series of filmed places, stories and histories of Cascadia with scores by musicians living in the Pacific Northwest. Portrait #2: Trojan is an arresting examination of the dynamics between industrialization and nature. To learn more: www.odoka.org/about/